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A Tale of Two Casinos: Unequal Spaces of Local Governance

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A Tale of Two Casinos: Unequal Spaces of Local Governance The Peter A. Allard School of Law Allard Research Commons Faculty Publications Allard Faculty Publications 2018 A Tale of Two Casinos: Unequal Spaces of Local Governance Alexandra Flynn Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.allard.ubc.ca/fac_pubs Part of the Law Commons Citation Details Alexandra Flynn, "A Tale of Two Casinos: Unequal Spaces of Local Governance" (2018) 30 JL & Soc Pol'y 75. This Working Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the Allard Faculty Publications at Allard Research Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Allard Research Commons. Author’s rights: 1. As the author(s), you retain ownership of the copyright in the Work, including the right to produce, reproduce, publish, distribute, communicate to the public by telecommunication, translate, adapt, perform, display and use the Work in any form whatever (including print or electronic media) and by any technology now known or hereafter developed, subject to those rights granted in this agreement. The author(s) agrees that any re-publications of the Work in print, electronic, or other form shall include a notice on the first page specifying that the Work was first published in the Journal of Law and Social Policy and shall include a full citation to the Journal. 2. As the author(s), the Journal of Law and Social Policy wishes you to retain the right to place the Work on your personal Webpage or SSRN or that of your university or institution provided that the author(s) indicate on the first page of the Work that it is either scheduled for publication, or has been published, in the Journal of Law and Social Policy and include this notice: A fully edited version of this Work was first published by the Journal of Law and Social Policy, (2018) 30, 75. A Tale of Two Casinos: Unequal Spaces of Local Governance ALEXANDRA FLYNN* Local actors, including resident and business associations, do not simply influence decision-makers, but can also reshape the purportedly neutral governance model within which decision-making takes place. In big cities like Toronto, this reshaping exacerbates the existing geographic and socio-economic unevenness. The work of James Scott, Mariana Valverde, and Cheryl Teelucksingh helps to explain how local actors interface with seemingly neutral governance bodies to have their interests heard, particularly in relation to locally undesirable land uses. The paper considers two case studies detailing the governance practices at work in differing decisions about casinos in the City of Toronto. A 2012-2013 debate about a casino in downtown Toronto saw a little-used bylaw invoked by city councillors to help them investigate the effects of a casino on “local” issues like traffic and planning. These empowered local actors played a central role in the debate. By contrast, in a 2015 debate about a casino in a poor neighborhood on the margins of the city, the debate proceeded through the usual decision-making process for “city-wide” deliberations, leading to fewer opportunities for involvement by local actors. The final section brings theoretical literature and case studies together to conclude that the institutions of local governance can be reshaped depending on the local actors involved, and claims that shifts in scale, from local to city-wide, have implications for the inclusivity and fairness of Toronto’s governance model. * I am indebted to Mariana Valverde, Kate Bedford, Sara Ross, Poland Lai, and two anonymous reviewers for their brilliant feedback and suggestions. Many thanks to Steven Tufts, Hoi Kong, Sonia Lawrence, and especially Stepan Wood and Dayna Nadine Scott, for their challenging questions and helpful insights in regard to the case studies. Gratitude also goes out to the organizers and participants of the “All Bets are Off!” conference, which took place at Kent Law School in June 2016 and inspired this article (All Bets are Off: Reflecting Critically on Gambling Regulation Within and Across Borders. 23-24 June 206, University of Kent (UK). All errors and omissions are my own. ROMANTIC STORIES ABOUND OF RESIDENTS RESHAPING CITIES, fighting for pizza and tandoori ovens in Toronto’s parks, or getting court protection for beloved graffiti art in Brooklyn.1 These stories have echoes in James Scott’s Seeing Like a State, where he lamented top-down planned cities like Brasilia, while extolling Jane Jacobs’ New York, which allowed residents to continuously recreate the city through a series of informal, “bottom-up,” street- level practices. 2 Mariana Valverde challenged Scott’s oversimplification of governance arguing that premodern and modern gazes are not mutually exclusive. 3 Rather than adopting a single lens to understand how municipal rules are made, Valverde cautions us to see the hybrid forms of rule-making that operate unpredictably and which epitomize modern land use planning. Through examining the legal institutions of Toronto’s governance model, I enter this debate to argue that local actors, including resident and business associations, do not simply influence decision-makers, but can also reshape the purportedly neutral governance model within which decision-making takes place. This reshaping exacerbates the existing geographic and socio- economic unevenness of big cities like Toronto. I focus on two recent casino decisions taken by the City of Toronto. The first, in 2012-2013, involved casino development in Toronto’s dense and affluent downtown core. The second, in 2015, concerned the expansion of an existing racetrack in a poor, suburban area of the city.4 In the 2012-2013 casino debate, several downtown casino options were identified as possible locations for a new casino in the City of Toronto. All were soundly rejected by City Council. In 2015, the expansion of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming (OLG) slots at the Woodbine Racetrack to a casino in Rexdale was approved quickly and with little community deliberation.5 This study is part of an ongoing account of the governance of cities, in particular the dis/empowerment of particular local actors.6 Part I situates the paper within relevant literature, 1 City of Toronto Staff, “Policy on Outdoor Ovens in City Parks,” Parks and Environment Committee (29 August 2011), online: </www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2011/pe/bgrd/backgroundfile-41502.pdf> [perma.cc/XK93-YADH]; Jennifer Bain, “Intersections: Tandoor oven one more reason to love R.V. Burgess Park,” Toronto Star (4 July 2014), online: <www.thestar.com/life/food_wine/2014/07/04/intersections_tandoor_oven_one_more_reason_to_love_rv_burgess_park.htm l> [perma.cc:BWT5-YTNQ]; Alan Feuer, “Graffiti Artists Awarded $6.7 Million for Destroyed 5Pointz Murals,” New York Times (12 February 2018) at A17, online: <www.nytimes.com/2018/02/12/nyregion/5pointz-graffiti- judgment.html> [perma.cc/K6S4-8JXK] . 2 James Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998). 3 Mariana Valverde, “Seeing Like a City: The Dialectic of Modern and Premodern Ways of Seeing in Urban Governance” (2011) 45:2 Law & Soc’y Rev 277 at 281. 4 This article does not reference the debates held in 2008 regarding the potential expansion of the Woodbine Racetrack to create a casino. For more information on these debates, see Steven Tufts, “Schumpeterian Unionism and ‘High-Road’ Dreams in Toronto’s Hospitality Sector” in Ann Cecelie Bergene et al, eds, Missing Links in Labour Geography (Surrey: Ashgate, 2010) 83. 5 Thus the proposed casino in Rexdale is often referred to as a casino at Woodbine racetrack or the Woodbine expansion. 6 See eg. Carissa Schively, “Understanding the NIMBY and LULU Phenomena: Reassessing Our Knowledge Base and Informing Future Research” (2007) 21:3 J Planning Literature 255 (analyzing the complexity of research related to ‘locally undesirable land use’ (LULUs) and “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) phenomena in cities); Tee L. Guidotti and Sheila Abercrombie, “Aurum: a case study in the politics of NIMBY” (2008) 26:6 Waste Management & Research 582 (examining the importance of the political history of the community in regard to community responses to LULU and NIMBY phenomenon); Prashan Ranasinghe and Mariana Valverde, “Governing including that of Scott and Valverde, regarding how local actors interface with seemingly neutral governance bodies to have their interests heard. This section theorizes the particular place of casinos in city debates. Part II details the two casino decisions in Toronto, which took place over an eighteen-month period. In the 2012-2013 decision, the Toronto-East York Community Council (TEYCC) was mobilized as a forum for deliberation. Usually, community councils do not play a role in “city-wide” debates, and the casino had been designated as a city-wide issue by city staff. However, in this case, the TEYCC was used to investigate the effects of a casino decision on “local” issues like traffic and planning. The TEYCC also empowered local actors to play a central role in the debate. By contrast, in 2015, the debate proceeded through the process for “city-wide” deliberations, with no community council involvement. Part III brings together the theoretical literature and case studies to conclude that the institutions of local governance can be reshaped depending on the local actors involved. This, I suggest, has implications for the inclusivity and fairness of Toronto’s governance model. In particular, the shift in scale, from local to city, results in differing degrees of city resources, information, and opportunities for involvement by local actors. On the one hand, this is a paper about how provincial law constrains or enables municipalities to create governing models to make decisions on issues like casinos. On the other hand, I also seek to understand how institutions are used and acted upon outside of the formal contours of law.
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